


Cigarette

by thewindupbird



Category: Brothers of the Head (2005), Brothers of the Head (Noize Era)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:42:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindupbird/pseuds/thewindupbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Christmas Eve. It was the eighth day in a row he was in the hospital. He hated it. He hated it so much he started to feel sick before he came.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cigarette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pretty much anything I write about Chris Dervish ever is for](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Pretty+much+anything+I+write+about+Chris+Dervish+ever+is+for), [letsgogetlost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgogetlost/gifts).



Chris sat on the narrow bed. Leather, blanketed with a pristine white towel, high enough off the ground that his feet dangled a few inches from the floor. He kicked his legs vaguely, listening to one bootlace drag on the lino.

 

The only lights came from the hospital hallway, and the room itself seemed to keep out all noise. He shivered. It was bloody cold in here, and he hadn’t thought to bring a sweater or anything. His coat was out in the waiting room with Paul.

 

It was Christmas Eve. It was the eighth day in a row he was in the hospital. He hated it. He hated it so much he started to feel sick before he came. They were doing tests. On his head, like. Asking him questions, doing x-rays (he hated staying still in those machines), taking blood. They asked him if he drank, did drugs, if he was depressed. They asked him about his family. No one was telling him anything.

 

Elbows on his thighs, he leaned forward, cradling his head in his hands, fingers tangled in his hair. If he closed his eyes he could feel himself rocking ever so slightly with his heartbeat. It comforted him a little, and he lost himself in it. He didn’t hear the nurse come in.

 

“Mr Dervish?” He looked up, started by the name, as though it wasn’t his own.

 

“Hu-what?” the nurse was a tall, thin black girl with hair all bunched at the back of her neck in the longest, thinnest braids he had ever seen. She had a beautiful smile, but most of the time she looked like she could take him two times out of three in a fight.  He liked her. She was the only one that didn’t seem awkward or distant with him. He had liked the way her eyes held his as she took several vials of his blood on the second day and didn’t comment on the track marks. She spoke to him the entire time.

 

“I’ll bet you’re wanting to get out of here, hm? What are you doing for Christmas?”

 

He smiled a little, although it wasn’t heartfelt. “Yeah… just—you know. Same old... ‘n that.”

 

“Well at least you don’t have to spend it here,” he said. “How do you feel?”

 

He nodded, sniffing a little. They’d taken more blood today. He didn’t see how that could have anything to do with whatever was wrong with him. It was his head that was causing him trouble, not his body… unless you counted the heroin.

 

He slid off the table, the world spinning a little. She reached out and caught his elbow, holding onto him for a moment until his eyes focused on her. He gave her another smile, ducked his head and walked out. Paul was waiting for him. Paul was always there waiting for him. He was the only one that would come into the hospital with him. At first Nick would drive them up and pace around outside, but eventually that became too much for him. He was tired of Chris getting ill almost every day, having to pull the car over. The car usually wasn’t this bad, but going to the hospital now made him shaky and nervous, made him feel worse, sicker. Nick had whined about it enough that Zak sent his driver down to drive them to the hospital, then back to Humbleden.

 

It was better with the driver, Frank. Chris liked him. He sang while he drove, and when he forgot the words he would just lapse into humming. Sometimes he’d make words up. It calmed Chris down, and he didn’t give them dirty looks when Chris put his head on Paul’s shoulder. It seemed like he knew every song in the world.

 

“Hey,” Paul said, standing up. “Ready?”

 

Chris sighed, staring at the floor and nodding.

 

“Make sure he eats something, we’ve had to take some more blood today,” The nurse said, leaning out of the doorway. “Christmas dinner might put some meat on his bones. Happy Chirstmas, love,” she said as she flashed a smile and then duck back into the room. Chris realised that he’d never learned her name, and it was the last time he would be coming in. The tests were done, finally… now they just had to wait for the results.

 

He wasn’t sure he wanted them.

 

Paul handed him his jacket and Chris just held onto it like he’d never seen one before. Paul didn’t ask him what was wrong. He knew he always got quiet after being here.

 

“C’mon, Chris, don’t you want to go?”

 

Chris opened his mouth to say something. Maybe apologise for what a prat he’d been to Paul… but that was why he was here in the first place, wasn’t it. Because of his mood swings, his inability to control them.

 

Later on in the car, Chris leaned forward, arm resting awkwardly on the seat in front of him so that he could see the road out the front window. It settled his stomach sometimes, to do that, and it helped him avoid talking to Paul, seeing how worried he looked. Paul never knew what to say after the hospital.

 

“Hey, listen,” Frank said, turning around in the front seat as they were getting out of the car. They always got out on the same side, him and Paul. It had always been that way. Chris had never thought about it before, but now, halfway across the backseat, Paul’s hand on the open door, he realised that they did that. He wondered why.

 

“Tests come in when?” Frank asked.

 

“Three weeks,” Chris said, furrowing his brow, not sure he wanted to talk about this. “Takes longer over the hols.”

 

The driver shook his head, and looked out the window. “You kids…” he murmured, gazing out the window before looking back at Chris. “Listen,” he told him again. “That’s three weeks of your life that you can’t spend worrying about what’s on those tests, understand? It’s Christmas. Then the New Year. Enjoy it. It’s never as bad as you think,” he said.

 

Chris tried to force a smile. Frank reached back and flicked him on the forehead and the smile became real, just for a second, and then Frank turned around. “Now get out of my car,” he said, grinning toothily. Chris got out, and shut the door.

 

Chris didn’t go up with Paul that night. He found it hard to sleep, and he knew he kept Paul awake, and he didn’t want to. The circles under Paul’s eyes were as dark as the bruises the the crooks of Chris’s arms. That day… these past few months… since he’d come to Humbleden, really, he felt like he was more trouble than he was worth. In a way, he’d always felt like that… always doing something wrong, making someone go out of their way, and now with these things happening to him that he didn’t understand…

 

It never seemed to be right, what he did. Paul had finished his cigarette, leaning forward to put it out. They were the last ones downstairs, sitting on the couch in the recording room together, just talking, listening to Lou Reed. Paul had stood up, “coming?” he asked, just like always, and Chris had looked up at him for a long time, time slipping away from him like it had been doing lately.

 

“Chris?”

 

Chris blinked, leaned back, tearing his eyes away. “No,” he found himself saying. And Paul had looked confused and hurt, and tried to hide it.

 

“Okay… s—see you in the morning then.”

 

Chris watched him disappear into the darkness of the hallway, pissed off at himself, pissed off in general, suddenly. He turned to look straight ahead, thought about sending his fist into the glass around the recording machines, but found himself suddenly too tired to move.

 

He lit a cigarette off his old one and didn’t smoke it at all, just leaned forward over his knees and watched it burn away.

 

Later that night, he went back up to their room, trying to be quiet. It worked, mostly, save for the creaking door. Sliding into bed next to Paul, it was like something switched, in his head. And suddenly he was Chris and this was Paul and he belonged here, next to Paul’s warm body, in this room which was always cold in the winter, under the multitudes of blankets that this boy piled on his bed, and Chris slid his arm around him and felt Paul’s sleepy intake of breath.

 

“Hey,” he said, and Chris didn’t have to look at him to hear the smile in his voice. He pulled Paul’s head under his chin and buried his face in his hair.

 

He thought about the way he’d watched his cigarette burn down, without looking away. The way the ash had gotten longer and longer and the paper, the part that held it all together had just burned away; and he thought about the way the ash held itself together a lot better than he could.


End file.
